Who Would You Have Liked to See in the Role?

[David Conwill]

I don’t know if this counts, but I’ve always wondered what “American Graffiti” would be like with the automobile characters cast a bit differently - when I look at Falfa’s ‘55 or Milner’s ‘32, I always see 1972, not 1962.

I’d have put Milner in something like Alex “Axle” Idzardi’s metallic blue, Pontiac-powered Deuce coupe, and Falfa in a brand-new ‘62 Impala SS-409. One of the themes of that story is that the ‘50s are over and the ‘60s are beginning. What could be more symbolic of that than a homebuilt ‘50s-style hot rod getting challenged, and nearly beaten by a brand-new factory-built performance car?

I’d have also at least put wide whitewalls on the Pharaohs’ Mercury and taken the nose-down rake out of the suspension. Those guys were stuck in the ‘50s even worse than John Milner, and should have been rolling in something more akin to the Hirohata Merc.

-Dave

 

[Ethan Bentley]

I'd like to see Roger Moore as a Bond Villain.

Owen Wilson as Felix Leiter, a sandy haired Texan just like the books.

 

[dhermann1]

I've always wished somebody had made a movie about the American Revolution with James Cagney as John Adams, John Wayne as George Washington, and Henry Fonda as Thomas Jefferson.

 

[Naphtali]

John Mills as Allan Quartermain [sic!], replacing Stewart Granger in the 1950 "King Solomon's Mines." Physically, Mills is Quatermain, and he is a superior actor.

And replace Deborah Kerr with James Robertson Justice or Torin Thatcher -- restoring proper gender casting as correct phenotype casting occurs. "King Solomon's Mines" is a rousing story. I wish [all] film versions did not diverge from the novel as severely as they do.

 

[HadleyH]

Grace Kelly in "My Fair Lady".... out of character for Kelly but an interesting option! You think she could have pull it off?

 

[Widebrim]

Alan Curtis as Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Grace Kelly in "My Fair Lady".... out of character for Kelly but an interesting option! You think she could have pull it off?

Would have been a nice movie but not a great one........I think she was too sophisticated and it would come across.

I realize that Grace Kelly won the Oscar for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Actress for The Country Girl for her role as the singer's long-suffering wife. However, given the period of its production, the film is notable for its stringent dialog and honest treatments of the surreptitious side of alcoholism (Crosby's character) and post-divorce misogyny.

Suffering wife is one thing but Pygmalion is another. [huh]

She one of my favorite actresses but I do not know if she would have given a credible performance. On the other hand Julie Andrews was great for the role.

Conversely, Alfred Hitchcock had considered Julie Andrews for roles in some of his films including Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. He felt she was “fair haired, cool of aspect, beautifully spoken, she epitomized his ideal of the lady in the drawing room. But it was harder for him to envisage her as the whore in the boudoir, as he had Grace Kelly in Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. Hitchcock said, ‘the audience will be waiting for her to start singing.” Even though Hitchcock did cast Andrews in Torn Curtain in 1965.


But then again no one has ever accused me of having good taste.... ......Well maybe once...

 

[HadleyH]

Would have been a nice movie but not a great one........I think she was too sophisticated and it would come across.

Yes .... but...

... if you think about it, both, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn are the epitome of class. Both of them! If it was a hard sell believing that elegant Audrey ever needed refinery, why not think the same would have happened with Grace?

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Yes .... but...

... if you think about it, both, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn are the epitome of class. Both of them! If it was a hard sell believing that elegant Audrey ever needed refinery, why not think the same would have happened with Grace?

Here is what I found: Controversy surrounded the casting of Audrey Hepburn instead of Julie Andrews for the part of Eliza — partly because theatregoers regarded Andrews as perfect for the part and partly because Hepburn's singing voice had to be dubbed. (Marni Nixon sang all songs except "Just you wait", where Hepburn's voice was left undubbed during the harsh-toned chorus of the song but Nixon sang the melodic bridge section.)

BUT, I will not take the chicken way out and leave my answer like this.

You have mentioned two of my favorite actresses and personalities. I will always remember Grace Kelly for the way the she treated and then befriended Josephine Baker. Not only was Kelly a wonderful actress but a wonderful person.

After Hepburn's final film role, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). She was grateful for her own good fortune after enduring the German occupation as a child, and she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the poorest nations.

I think both would have been just fine in the role it's just that Hepburn's experiences in WWII leave me thinking that she she could connect a little more with the role.

If the truth be told, I idealize them both, quite possibly too much as I cannot see either of them as a Cockney flower girl. Then again I could see them as anything for both their on screen and off screen personae strike me as the "every woman" personality that I find so endearing.

 

[Viola]

Shirley Temple as Dorothy in Wizard of Oz. Would have made the whole role a good bit less creepy.

As a very little girl I was always confused as to why that grown lady was acting like a kindergartener.

And, I know this is borderline heresy to some, but it was the Addams Family movies that convinced me I wanted to see a remake of Nick and Nora with Raul Julia as Nick. I think he would have been grand, martini-swilling genius in the the role.

 

[BlameOnMame]

I've never understood why Gable never did any Noir.

There's just no reason for it! He would have been perfect in a noir.

 

[David Conwill]

I've never understood why Gable never did any Noir.

There's just no reason for it! He would have been perfect in a noir.

I think the simple answer was that he didn't have to. Most noir were B pictures (the era equivalent of made-for-tv or straight-to-video), and Gable was a superstar.

-Dave

PS. But I agree, he'd have been great at it.

 

[HadleyH]

-"Billy Wilder approached Mary Pickford for the role of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Blvd" but she wanted too much control and thought the film was going to be a happy one. She just couldn't make fun of what she had once been, a famous silent film star. So Gloria Swanson took the part and went into history for it."-


Yes, I think Billy Wilder had the right idea. Mary Pickford playing herself in a sense.It could have been a moving picture and very poignant too.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ned Sparks as Scrooge, with Dick Powell as Bob Cratchit, Patsy Kelly as Mrs. Cratchit, El Brendel as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Wallace Beery as the Ghost of Christmas Present, H. B. Warner as the Ghost of Christmas Future, Guy Kibbee as Fezziwig, Hugh Herbert as Fred The Nephew, Allen Jenkins as Marley's Ghost, Hobart Cavanaugh and Charles Lane as the charity collectors, Ruby Keeler as Fan, Polly Moran as the cleaning lady who steals the bed curtains, and Scotty Beckett as Tiny Tim. The entire story moved from Victorian London to Brooklyn U. S. A., c. 1935.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

-"Billy Wilder approached Mary Pickford for the role of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Blvd" but she wanted too much control and thought the film was going to be a happy one. She just couldn't make fun of what she had once been, a famous silent film star. So Gloria Swanson took the part and went into history for it."-


Yes, I think Billy Wilder had the right idea. Mary Pickford playing herself in a sense.It could have been a moving picture and very poignant too.

Montgomery Clift, signed to play the part of Joe Gillis, broke his contract two weeks prior to the start of shooting. Billy Wilder quickly offered the role to Fred MacMurray, who turned it down because he didn't want to play a gigolo. Marlon Brando was considered, but the producers thought he was too much of an unknown as a film actor. Gene Kelly was then approached, but MGM refused to loan him out. Reluctantly, Wilder met with William Holden, whose films to that time had not impressed Wilder (Holden's films of the 1940's were decidedly mediocre).

I cannot see MacMurray in that part...or Gene Kelly ........but Clift had an edginess to him that I appreciate. He always held my interest, as if there were more he wanted to say; a yearning to give more to the audience. He and Pickford would have done well in that movie.

 

[Edward]

Some of the films that immediately spring to mind for me are actually more recent productions, but based in a vintage, or near vintage, era. One of my all-time gripes is what Hollywood did to Cabaret. The film provides some nice things, but really, why they felt the need to rewrite the stage show to such extremes is beyond me, a the former is vastly superior. I disliked intensely the way they reversed the nationalities of Clifford and Sally - presumably to accomodate Liza Minelli, beyond whom, I suspect, a convincing English accent lay. Actually, I loathe Minelli's performance in general.... purely a personal opinion, of course, but i never did see what all the fuss was about with her. [huh] I do believe that a film version true to the stage show could be made today and do well - it would also be superior in terms of period look, I feel. As to whom I would cast.... young Anna Friel would be an outstanding Sally. Clifford, hmmnn.... the guy that played John Cage in Ally MacBeal, the camp leader in Addams Family Values... I don't recall his name, but he (or a perhaps slightly younger version of him) would make a perfect Clifford. The MC.... Joel Gray was great, though I'd love to see what Christopher Walken would do with it.

More recently, the early 1960s-set Hairspray - the newer big screen version of the stage musical, as opposed to the original film. It had such potential, but was utterly ruined for me by Travolta's dismal turn as Edna. I do wish that Harvey Fiernstein hadn't turned them down (I hear he was offered the role first).... or almost anyone else, really, other than Travolta.

You're forgetting that Eastwood was meant to be the unthinking man's McQueen.

lol I think that's a little harsh.... many of Eastwood's younger roles were very much type-casting, but in more recent years I believe he has given some outstanding performances, particualrly in Gran Torino. THe latter especially speaks much of what it means to be "a man" in contemporary Western culture, in my opinion.

I have always thought Sean Connery was the definitive Bond although Craig is catching up. Hated Roger Moore with a passion, smarmy twit. But I have often thought that Cary Grant would have been an interesting James Bond.

I agree entirely with you re Connery, Craig and especially Moore! I do have to wonder, though, hether if Moore had been given the quality of material to work with that Connery was, something very different may have been the result. It seems to me that the Moore era was the beginning of a very, very long and drawn out series of self-parodying Bonds, a direction only altered with the Craig-era rebooting of the franchise. Bond has for me always been a slight disappointment - it could be great, but the output has never quite lived up to the promise. I would ideally like to see them go back to the start and remake all the books as written, a fifties-set period piece. Better than the ghastly Moore era, also better than the newer wannabe-Bourne stuff.

Ian Fleming modeled the James Bond character partially with Grant in mind. Turned down the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962), believing himself to be too old at 58 to play the character.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000026/bio

The gun in that image is one of the most famous of Bond weapons.... and yet it is a mere single-shot, air-powered, pellet gun picked out by the photographer as they liked how it looked. Somehow that always amused me. It certainly looks more stylish than the Moore era, snub-nosed Walther PPK.... perhaps that's desperately Freudian?? lol


One film - outside the Golden Era, for sure, but still an undoubted classic - which very much got the casting right was the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The directing and writing team stuck to their guns and faced down Fox Studios, which wanted to stuff it full of famous pop stars of the day. Instead, the film went ahead with various performers who had already had experience of appearing in the stage show. Of the principal cast (most of whom had opened in the original London production in 1973 and so created their roles), only Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon as Brad and Janet respectively came to the film 'new' (fitting, in a way...). Of course, the studio exacted its revenge by slicing the budget for the film - it was made for USD1 million (the equivalent of USD8 million today). While it may not be the highest grossing film of all time, it must surely, 35-odd years on, have made them a bigger return proportionate to original investment than any other.

 

[Wally_Hood]

Ned Sparks as Scrooge, with Dick Powell as Bob Cratchit, Patsy Kelly as Mrs. Cratchit, El Brendel as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Wallace Beery as the Ghost of Christmas Present, H. B. Warner as the Ghost of Christmas Future, Guy Kibbee as Fezziwig, Hugh Herbert as Fred The Nephew, Allen Jenkins as Marley's Ghost, Hobart Cavanaugh and Charles Lane as the charity collectors, Ruby Keeler as Fan, Polly Moran as the cleaning lady who steals the bed curtains, and Scotty Beckett as Tiny Tim. The entire story moved from Victorian London to Brooklyn U. S. A., c. 1935.

This is sheer genius! Your casting choices are deadly accurate!:eusa_clap

 

[byronic]

The Saint

Jeremy Northam as Simon Templar on the big screen, but as a stand-alone project, not as a sequel to the Val Kilmer effort.

 

[skyvue]

Robert Mitchum in the role he was born to play -- Philip Marlowe -- in any Chandler novel ever adapted to the screen.

Mitchum played Marlowe, and beautifully (in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, if not the awful THE BIG SLEEP, about which nothing worked), but he was too long in the tooth at the time.

If only he'd gotten the chance to assay Marlowe at the right age. Mitchum's work as a private detective in OUT OF THE PAST gives us a taste of how it would've gone -- he'd have been the Marlowe of all Marlowes, in my opinion.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"Tallulah Bankhead, never got over missing out on the role of Margot Channing in "All about Eve" losing out to Bette Davis was a bitter disappointment for her, she was always referring to it on "The Big show" on the wireless in the 50's